


Still A Lot To Prove

by Anonymous



Category: Chess - Rice/Ulvaeus/Andersson
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-19 01:34:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29618565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Florence and Freddie, over the years.
Relationships: Brief allusions to Florence/Anatoly, Frederick Trumper & Florence Vassy
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4
Collections: Five Figure Fanwork Exchange 2020





	Still A Lot To Prove

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SegaBarrett](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/gifts).



_The hotel room came with all the usual conveniences; it even had satellite TV - that was new. But the only important requirement was that it had a table big enough to lay out a chess board on, and it was on this that Florence and Freddie were both focused._

_How many times had they faced each other across the board? she wondered. How many different variations had they played out by now? And how many mistakes made?_

_Not that that wasn't the point: make the mistakes now, rather than in the competition._

_Freddie, playing white, opened by bringing out his queen's side knight._

_"Unconventional," Florence said._

_"Well, you know me," Freddie replied with a smile. "I don't like to do things the way people expect."_

* * *

Florence stood at the side of the draughty hall, not even trying to keep the scowl from her face.

The finalists were facing off against each other, their moves being relayed to those watching by the officials moving hanging pieces on a display wall. There'd been a lot of fuss about this being brought in for the tournament, but the reality had proved disappointing: the chequered backdrop was nearly threadbare, and one of the black bishops kept falling off; it had been a relief when one had been sacrificed and the pieces used could be swapped. Altogether, it hadn't lived up to the advertising.

Much the same could be said of the other thing that had been brought in -- The American, as everyone had spoken of him in the weeks leading up to his actual arrival on the scene. Now he was just "Trumper", the "Mister" having fallen out of fashion very rapidly as he offended one player after another with his brash and bruising comments in the breaks between games, or worse, during them.

Most of the others defeated in the earlier rounds, now standing around, were anxious for George Richards to beat him, send him back to the States with his tail between his legs. Florence's feeling was subtly different: she was fervently wishing that she was the one doing it instead. She'd made it to the quarter finals, but lost to Richards there by running out of time. That wasn't like her at all, but she'd panicked that a couple of strange moves he'd made in the midgame had been an attempt to set up some obscure gambit she didn't know -- Richards was notorious for having memorised the contents of every book out there. It was even said that he'd taught himself to build a computer, entirely so that he could run a chess program on it, and learn from its games against itself.

But now, a couple of hours later, she'd come to the conclusion that it had just been a mistake he'd made, followed by a hasty attempt to cover it. Even if it was some strange new variant he'd seen his computer play once, she was confident that her well-developed queen's side would have seen her through in the end. Trouble was, she hadn't had that couple of hours to come to that conclusion during the game, and she'd wasted too much of the time she had had on trying to puzzle out what he'd been up to.

But now she was having to watch Trumper run rings around him, Richards unable to cope with his seemingly chaotic but actually carefully structured sequences of moves. Florence had watched a couple of his games in the earlier rounds while waiting to find out who she'd be facing, and thought that she'd begun to be able to decipher the method in his madness. The best response, it seemed to her, was to play defensively, build up a solid position on the board, and wait for Trumper to make a mistake; instead, like so many others throughout the tournament, Richards was flailing around trying to respond to each and every daring feint, and leaving his own pieces in disarray.

And there it was, sure enough: Trumper manoeuvred his queen into place, slipping past Richards' straggling pawn formations as though they weren't there at all, and the trap was sprung: the various pieces that seemed almost randomly scattered around the middle of the board revealed to all be protecting one another and the square the queen had just occupied.

Richards studied the board for a minute or more before knocking over his king.

He didn't shake Trumper's hand, and the applause was distinctly muted, although the muttered conversations people were holding were full of grudging acknowledgement, and a certain muted respect, for the strange sort of genius "the American" possessed.

Most people had already drifted away by the time the presentation of the trophy took place: some heading back to their parked cars or the railway station; rather more, she suspected, to the pub to continue complaining about Trumper. Florence's sense of politeness, to the organisers if nothing else, forced her to stay, and so it was that it was relatively easy for Trumper to make a beeline for her after the formal proceedings were over.

"You're ... Vassy, right?" he said.

"Miss Vassy," she said.

"Right, same way everyone calls me 'Mister' Trumper," he said, and she had to suppress a smile. "Freddie's fine, you know; I keep telling people that but--"

"Perhaps you'd get a better response if you weren't making digs at them at the same time," Florence said.

"Oh, it's all in good fun," he said.

"I'm not sure everyone would agree with that assessment," Florence said.

"But what's your assessment, _Miss Vassy_?" His eyes sparkled. "Am I mad or a genius?"

"I think the truth is probably a little of both," Florence said.

"Oh ho ho!" He was rocking back and forth slightly, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, as though he was never capable of being completely still. Then he pointed at her, as though they were in a game of hide and seek and he'd just spotted where she'd concealed herself. "You think you would have beaten me, don't you?"

For a moment, Florence didn't know what to say. But in the end she decided the truth would have to do. "Yes," she admitted.

"And you might have too," Trumper said. "With maybe just a little bit of luck." At her puzzled stare, he said, "I saw you watching my games; didn't you realise I was watching yours as well?"

"You seemed to be bothering everyone equally," Florence said.

"No, no, from very early on I was watching _you_ specifically."

That was rather startling. "Oh?"

"What, you think I want to get into your 'knickers'?" He smiled, and damn him if it wasn't charming, in its own peculiar way. "That's what they say here, right?"

Florence rolled her eyes.

"It's nothing like that," Trumper said, before hastily adding, "Not that you're not a very attractive woman--"

" _Mister_ Trumper, if you're anywhere in the vicinity of an actual point, _please_ get to it quickly." She was starting to feel like this conversation was just like one of his games: random tangents that seemed to go nowhere but were designed to disorientate and confuse, followed by some blistering attack or another.

"I want you to be my second," Trumper said.

Florence could feel her mouth falling open, had to consciously fight to close it again. "You ... what?"

"I think we both know I'm going to playing in rather different tournaments soon," he said. "I'm going to need someone who'll keep me at the top of my game, challenge me ... I've been looking for a while; trust me, I wouldn't be here if I'd been able to find someone in the States."

"But having watched a handful of games, you've decided it should be me?"

"You're good. But the other reason is, you're like me," Trumper said. He held out his hands. "Don't be offended! Obviously in not every respect: you're much, much politer than me. If I were in your shoes, I would have walked off in them at least five minutes ago. But what I mean is ... in the end, you're an outsider."

"Because I'm Hungarian, you mean?" Florence said, hackles rising even further.

"No, no, because you're--" He'd been about to say "a girl", she was sure of it, but luckily for him he changed it to "not what they expect." He looked at her then, his eyes suddenly and very unexpectedly piercing. "Are you?"

"I'm not what _you_ expect, either," she shot back.

"Delighted to hear it," Trumper said. He held out his hand. "I'm going places, Miss Vassy. Do you wanna come with me?"

* * *

_Florence refused to take the bait, and advanced her king's pawn; sure enough, Freddie soon settled down into a somewhat more conventional opening._

_"You're being boring," he accused when she neatly sidestepped his attempt to invite an exchange of queens._

_"We've always known that one of us has to be the sensible one," she shot back._

_"Yes, yes, and 90% of the time it was you," Freddie said._

_Florence smiled at him. "You think it's that little?"_

* * *

The plane flew across the Icelandic landscape, the only thing in the sky -- or on the ground -- for miles around.

Florence looked out of the tiny window at the scene below: the contrasts between the deep black basalt, the glowing orange of the lava spilling out and the bright white of the glacier further out was striking. It was strange to think that such things could co-exist so close together, but then the world was full of juxtapositions and seeming contradictions. She had learned young that smiling faces and kind words could be accompanied by betrayal and deceit; perhaps that was what she liked about working with Freddie, in spite of all its challenges -- he would always tell you exactly what he was really thinking, even if it was often at the most inopportune moments.

She supposed that the members of the press pool sitting behind them saw a similar juxtaposition in her and Freddie, but of course she wouldn't expect them to understand the subtleties. She imagined for a moment one of them writing about what was happening right now, using ice and fire as a convoluted metaphor for the pair of them. In some ways, after yesterday, she'd have been glad for once if they did. The speculation about her and Freddie had been going on for some time, ever since he'd first risen to real prominence by becoming the youngest ever US Champion. It was all very subtle -- the sorts of venues that were ever going to write about chess in the first place wouldn't want to think of themselves as gossipmongers -- but it was definitely present. Freddie always dismissed it with a derisive snort, calling the journalists who deigned to write such things idiots, or something even more colourful.

Now, with those self-same idiots on the seat behind him, and worse still his opponent just in front, he was for once keeping his feelings deep under wraps. But Florence could tell that, although his gaze appeared to be directed out of the window, he wasn't appreciating the view at all, let alone any opportunities it might provide for reflection on his current situation. He hated flying; she'd first learned that when, to her considerable surprise, returning with him to America meant days spent on the _Queen Elizabeth 2_ crossing the North Atlantic rather than a flight from Heathrow. Since then, he'd got to the point of at least being able to board a plane, but it had never grown to be an experience he would enjoy. It had been hard enough on the flight over here, and that had been on a jumbo jet with all the distractions of free snacks, free booze, and in-flight movies. Now, in a much smaller plane, with only twenty-something seats, she supposed that he felt that much closer to the thin metal skin of the fuselage.

Florence had put her hand out on the armrest next to her, casually, as though it might just be resting there, but available for him to grip if he wanted to. He didn't -- or hadn't, yet, at any rate, but she could tell that he wanted to. Even with her attention fixed on the scene out of the window, she could feel the tension radiating from him, imagine the way his jaw would be clenched.

The sooner they were back on solid ground, the better.

The flight had been organised by their hosts and it would have been impossible to refuse, even before yesterday's incident. Now, though, Freddie had to be on his absolute best behaviour, and even he seemed to know it. Responding to a question about whether he took chess altogether too seriously, he had said -- Florence suspected the exact words would be etched on her mind ffor some time to come -- "Ask me that again when we're not in a country where they go to war over fish!"

She had a feeling, though, that it had been the question before that, the one he had simply pretended not to have heard, that had put him on a hair trigger. "Mr. Trumper," the journalist had said. "You're the youngest challenger in over five decades. Are your parents proud of your achievements?"

It had been on that first Atlantic crossing that she'd discovered that parents were just as painful a subject for Freddie as they were for her. But where her family had been torn apart by external circumstances, collateral damage in the sweep of the implacable forces of history, Freddie's had imploded all on its own, a small private drama that Freddie clearly found disappointingly squalid. She still didn't know all the details, but it had become increasingly clear over the years that he wasn't in touch with either his mother or his father. It was a wonder in some ways that he never seemed to object to her talking about her own father, but perhaps by doing so she gave him a vicarious idea of what a better one would have been like.

At the end of the flight there was, inevitably, another press conference.

"Mr. Trumper, did you enjoy your trip?"

"Oh, very much," he lied smoothly. "A simply stunning landscape." He put out his hands. "I just want to say thank you to the Minister for organising it; I think I can speak for every one of us in saying that it was an unmissable opportunity." Florence fought to keep the smile from her face at the double meaning in his words.

"And are you feeling confident about the match beginning tomorrow?"

"I always feel confident," Freddie said.

"And what about you, Monsieur Martin?"

Florence listened as the question was translated. Martin, the reigning champion, was one of the most taciturn people she had ever met -- Florence had quickly come to the conclusion that had he been born a few centuries earlier, he'd have ended up as a monk in a silent order -- but she was certain that his English was better than he let on. "I am the champion," came the official translation of the reply, but she knew enough French to know that that wasn't the full meaning of what he had said.

"We'll see for how much longer," Freddie muttered under his breath.

Martin, however, had heard him. In flawless English he said, "Indeed; that is why we are here, is it not?" before stalking off, his second, his translator and the few other members of his entourage following silently.

The Minister seemed nonplussed so Florence stepped forward. "I think we can all agree with the sentiment that the game is the most important thing," she said. "Now if you'll excuse us, Mr. Trumper needs to prepare as well."

Back in their room, though, Freddie was doing anything but preparing. Florence had set up an interesting position on the board for them to study -- from the only game that had come close to being a loss in Martin's previous title defence -- but Freddie was simply pacing up and down, only a tiny fraction of the way from literally tearing his hair out. "What did he _mean_?"

"Just consider for a moment that perhaps he meant what he said," Florence said. "He's not trying to get into your head, he's just telling the truth of the situation."

"But doesn't he care?" Freddie seemed completely exasperated by the idea. "Whichever of us wins this will be up against whoever the Soviets dig out next."

"He's already seen off three of their best in the last few years," Florence pointed out. "And I don't think he cared about anything other than the game then, either."

"Then doesn't he care about being the best?"

"You know? I'm honestly not sure he does. Maybe he just wants to play the game, and doing that just happens to have brought him all the way to the top. He might be the ideal opponent for you: someone whose head you just _can't_ get into, because he's only playing for the love of the game. If you beat him, people will have to acknowledge because you played better. Hell, he'd probably be the first to say it."

"So you agree with all those junk articles? You think that I win by putting my opponents off, not because I'm better than them?"

"No, of course not," Florence said. She smiled sweetly. "You don't do any of that stuff as a tactic, it's just you being you."

"That's so reassuring," Freddie said with a roll of the eyeballs.

He was still agitated. "Freddie, I'm going to tell you something now but you have to promise not to wind me up about it later."

That got his attention. "Something tells me this is going to be good."

"You have to promise," Florence said, deadly serious. "You can't make jokes about what I'm about to tell you, not now, not tomorrow, not next week or next year ..."

"OK, OK, I promise," Freddie said. At her sceptical look, he added sardonically, "Cross my heart and hope to die."

"Why do you think I said yes, when you asked me to be your second?"

"You were bored of England? You needed the money? You couldn't help--"

"No, no, and _no_ ," Florence said, cutting him off. "It's because I could see how good you were. Underneath all the bluster and the brashness. Cultivate this bad boy image for the press if you must, but the reason I'm sticking with you is that, for better or worse, you're the best there is."

"You really think so?" Freddie said. "Why haven't you ever said that sort of thing to me before?"

"Why do you think?" Before he could start to reply, she said warningly, "Remember what you promised."

Freddie opened his mouth a few times, but didn't seem to be able to find anything to say that wouldn't be sarcastic.

"Now look," she said. "It's my job to make sure that you can show everyone else what I know to be true."

"So?"

"So come over here and look at this board with me."

* * *

_By the end of the opening, Freddie's position was well developed. Drawing on long experience playing against him, Florence had avoided being drawn into any of his more elaborate feints, keeping her pieces on the move, flexible and ready to respond when necessary, but evading his attempts at forks and pins._

_"This is all very Sun Tzu of you," Freddie commented._

_"It is, is it?"_

_"Water has no constant form; in war, there are no constant conditions," Freddie quoted._

_Florence looked at him sceptically. "I thought you didn't approve of seeing chess as a war."_

_"Maybe I have a different point of view when I'm winning," he said, moving his rook to reveal check from a bishop hidden well back behind some pawns._

_Florence had known he was planning something, but had missed the synergy between those two pieces. Right now, his position was very strong._

_Now the fight was really on._

* * *

Freddie was incandescent. The list of supplementary regulations for the Merano tournament had just arrived, stipulating everything from the length of rest breaks to the height of the table and the depth of the pile of the carpet.

He threw the thick bundle of documents down onto the table, scattering its pages. "For god's sakes, can't we just play the game?"

"Freddie, you had to know this sort of thing was coming," Florence said. "After all the things that have happened at these sorts of tournaments in the past--"

"They're saying I'm a goddamn cheat, is what it is."

"Look at it this way," Florence said. "It protects you just as much from any cheating that _they're_ indulging in."

"Can I speak frankly?"

The voice from the back of the room was that of Walter de Courcey. Florence wasn't at all sure she trusted him -- she was certain that he wasn't just a TV producer, whatever his protestations -- but Freddie seemed to find him persuasive. There had been times recently when it had seemed that he listened to Walter more than her.

"Nothing ever seems to stop you from doing so," Florence said.

"This is all just a game," Walter said. "A game around the game, if you like. They make ridiculous demands, so we make ridiculous demands back, so they come up with something even more ridiculous still. It keeps the people like me -- on both sides -- busy for a while, stops us getting ourselves into trouble elsewhere. And in the end, anything anyone can imagine that might give one player or the other an unfair advantage has been ruled out. They have a saying over there, something about trusting but verifying." Walter shrugged. "That's all this is."

Freddie seemed unconvinced. Florence tried again. "So either the game's fair, or at the very least anyone who wants to cheat will have to think of something brand new."

Freddie ignored her, though; she watched as he stalked over to Walter, a few hastily grabbed pages bunched up in his fist. "So what you're telling me is that some of this bullshit is _our_ bullshit?"

"No," Walter said, rising from the chair to his full height. "It's _your_ bullshit, and the sooner you get your head around that the better." He laughed deeply. "Hell, it's practically what they expect of you. Fits in with your ... image."

Freddie huffed and walked back to the table. "But ... the exact sizes of our water glasses?"

"Miss Vassy is right," Walter said. "This works in your favour in the end. You already know you're not going to cheat, and now you can be sure the other fella ain't going to either."

Freddie slumped forwards, hands still twitching with frustration as they pressed down on the table but Florence could see the change in him, the ungracious admission of defeat. He had accepted the logic of the argument, at least, even if she was certain that she would be hearing about all of this over and over again between now and the tournament itself. She supposed that later on she would have to reconstruct the paperwork and familiarise herself with it, just in case any disputes did arise during the tournament.

"Well, I have things to be attending to," Walter said. "I'm sure I'll see you both soon." He put on his raincoat and headed for the door.

"Do you think they will try?" Freddie asked once he'd gone.

"Indulge me, Freddie," Florence said. "Do I think who will try what?"

"The Soviets!" he said as though it was obvious. "Do you think they'll try to cheat?"

"Sergievsky seems like a nice guy," Florence said carefully. At Freddie's sceptical look, she said, "He does!"

"That's just the image they want to project of him," Freddie said. "Propaganda."

"I was going to say," Florence went on, "that that doesn't mean that the people around him won't want to maximise his chances." Much like Walter would Freddie's, she thought.

"So what do we do?"

" _You_ play chess. Leave everything else to me."

* * *

_Florence studied the board. The midgame had turned out messily; Freddie had made not one but two costly mistakes and, instead of retreating, gone down fighting, wiping out half the pieces she had developed even though it sacrificed his own position. Now her queen was isolated and at risk._

_She held it with her finger, already committed to moving it but still uncertain as to where to. The net results of the tumult over the last few moves was that most squares in the middle of the board were vulnerable to capture from one piece or another that she knew Freddie would happily sacrifice if it took her queen off the board. The spaces that weren't threatened offered little to no strategic advantage._

_Reluctantly, but inevitably, she brought the queen back to her starting position._

* * *

Florence hesitated, her hand on the door knob. She could see Jenny looking up at her expectantly. She always found it a little disconcerting that someone so forceful was also so much shorter than her.

"Look, you don't need to come in here," Florence said.

"Actually, I do," Jenny said. "It's kind of my job?"

Florence still didn't move.

"You don't want me to come in, do you?" Jenny said.

"Does it matter? You're going to anyway." Florence tried to keep her tone light, but she knew that a trace of the bitterness she felt at what her life had become was seeping through.

"Or is it that you don't want to go in in the first place?"

Florence smiled. "It might be," she admitted.

"You'll be fine," Jenny said. "You look smashing."

Florence had put on the skirt suit they'd provided for her; the label said "cream" but in Florence's view if it was cream, then it was cream that had been left far too long in the fridge and congealed into something rather different. She was assured, however, that it would photograph well. "Is that your professional opinion?" she asked.

"Do I have any other kind, Miss Vassy?"

Florence rolled her eyes good-naturedly -- Jenny had never once called her Florence, no matter how often she insisted -- and opened the door.

Inside, the studio had been set up to resemble some sort of ornate drawing room: the blank grey floor gave way improbably to lush carpet. Bright white lights illuminated a pair of deep red leather armchairs sat in front of bookcases which only a discerning eye would notice were completely filled with multiple copies of the same edition of the _Encyclopedia Britannica_ , the same nineteen volumes arrayed across them, not even in any sort of order. On the table that rested between the two chairs, a chessboard with pieces arranged haphazardly, an ashtray with nothing in it, and two ornate crystal glasses with a small amount of Scotch whisky in the bottom, either side of the very expensive bottle they had been poured from, its label carefully turned round to face the direction the photos would be taken from.

The whole thing felt false, on more than one level.

The last time she had been here, it had been with Anatoly. They'd done a series of shots of the two of them, looking deadly serious while in the proximity of various items that had seemed completely disparate to them, but turned out to be owned by the same parent company, who had paid handsomely for them to spend their time doing basically nothing. In between each shot, though, they'd laughed and joked at the sheer ridiculousness of the whole situation -- that the two of them were somehow considered famous enough to be used in advertising, but also that signing this contract had turned out, in the aftermath of Bangkok, to be the only way to make money.

But before she was able to process the feelings and memories stirred up, she was being fussed around by all manner of people: the make-up artist was undoing all the hard work she'd put in an hour earlier, the photographer looking at her through his lens, trying to work out angles even before she was in position, and a white-haired man with a cigarette permanently hanging out of his mouth introducing himself to her.

"James Booth, creative director," he said. "We're very excited to be working with you on this account, Miss Vassy." He turned to Jenny. "Who are _you_?" he demanded.

"I'm Miss Vassy's Personal Assistant," Jenny said smoothly, putting out her hand. "Genevieve Thorpe." Her accent had changed almost completely, flat Northern vowels replaced by cut-glass Received Pronunciation. Florence still didn't know which was the real Jenny and which was the act; although it was altogether possible that they both were, neither Jenny nor Genevieve her real name.

"Well, go stand over there and don't interrupt anything," Booth said irritably, gesturing to the furthest corner of the room.

Jenny nodded and did as she was told, eyes meeting with Florence's for just a moment. Florence assumed that it must rankle Jenny, her cover requiring her to take such treatment on a regular basis, but if it did those momentary glances were the only sign of it she ever gave. Presumably knowing that she could overpower everyone in the room within seconds if she needed to, even without resorting to using the gun tucked discreetly into a shoulder holster under her jacket, made a difference to how she felt about the situation.

It had been one thing having a shadow from MI5 when she had been living with Anatoly, in that strange year that even now, only a few months later, felt like a lifetime ago. That had come with the territory of being involved in such a high-stakes drama; but it seemed absurd that she still needed protection -- or was it monitoring? -- now, when she barely left her flat from one week to the next. Except for nonsensical "contractual obligations" like this one.

She felt a pang of regret about the two major national tournaments that had gone by in the last few months -- tournaments which, an even longer lifetime ago, she would have entered without hesitation. She'd spent so long at the very top end of the circuit with Freddie that she'd got out of the habit of competing herself.

"You don't have to do anything you wouldn't normally do," Booth said. "Just, you know, look at the board and--"

"And the whisky will just be in shot while I do?"

Booth beamed. "Exactly!" At Florence's sceptical look, his tone hardened. "You are still under contract. Mr Sergievsky may be beyond the reach of our ability to enforce it, but that doesn't mean ..."

"OK, OK, I get it," Florence said. "Sit down, shut up and don't say anything. Can we just get this over with?"

But as soon as she had sat down, and actually studied the board, she realised it was all wrong. Without even thinking, she began rearranging it.

"What are you doing?" the photographer asked; the first time he had spoken since she'd arrived. "I spent a long time setting that up."

"Well, you didn't do a very good job," Florence said. "There's no plausible way to get to that position in any reasonable game." She removed the white pawn that had reached the back rank and brandished it. "And this should have turned into a queen."

"Setting it up to frame the shot the way I wanted," the photographer said, his tone somehow conveying patronising defensiveness. He turned to Booth. "Does this stuff really matter?"

"Miss Vassy--"

"If you've decided that I'm the right fit for this campaign, then you're trying to sell to people who _will_ notice," Florence said, fixing him with her gaze, daring him to disagree.

She carried on rearranging the pieces, setting up one of her favourite puzzles without even really being conscious that that was what she was doing.

"Does that piece have to go there?" the photographer asked, pointing at the black queen. "It's blocking a clear view of the label."

Florence sighed, moving it back slightly, to where it just possibly could have been the previous move, if everyone involved had been playing very badly. "Better?" she asked.

The photographer nodded. "OK, so now, just ignore me," he said. Instantly, he began taking shot after shot, seeming to change the camera's position and angle minutely each time, the flash flaring in her eyes over and over again.

And then, suddenly, it stopped. Through her disorientation, she became aware that Booth was waving his hands to stop. He came over to her. "We need you to do it a little differently," he said.

"I thought you just wanted me to look at the board?" Florence said, faux-innocently.

"You have to make _some_ sort of eye contact with the camera," Booth said.

She stared down the camera, the same stare she'd used to use on Freddie when he was being particularly ridiculous.

"Yeah, not like _that_ ," the photographer said.

"Look, everyone here has a huge amount of respect for you," Booth said, "but we need--"

"I know _exactly_ what you think you 'need'," Florence said. She picked up the glass of whisky and swigged it in one go. The Scotch hit the back of her throat hard, filling up her nose at the same time, almost making her snort. Very much not the sophisticated way the people this advertisement was supposed to appeal to would be drinking it, she thought.

There was a moment of silence.

"Refill the glass," Booth snapped at one of the flunkies who had been standing around not really doing anything particularly well-defined. Quickly, he stepped over, and, somehow avoiding Florence while still being right next to her, did as instructed.

The photoshoot went on; Florence gave them what they wanted, looking at the board but also at the camera under her lashes, leaning forward just the right amount to make the whole thing seem "intimate", as Booth put it, even if it was taking place in a converted warehouse.

When it seemed like it was finally over, she knocked over white's king. The photographer grabbed one more shot, even as she was reaching for the glass again. She sipped it this time. "Is there a problem?" she said to the assembled staring faces. "You wouldn't want me to endorse something I hadn't actually tried, would you?"

Booth looked mildly alarmed. "We can arrange for some to be sent to you, if you'd like."

"That won't be necessary," Jenny said, stepping away smoothly from the wall. "Thank you, gentlemen; I need to make sure Miss Vassy gets to her next appointment on time."

"Yes," Florence said seriously. "Next appointment."

It was on the way out when Jenny had to catch her from falling over a two-inch-high door step that they both realised there was, in fact, a problem. "Oh, Christ," Jenny said, instantly back to her usual accent. "You don't normally drink whisky, do you?"

"I don't normally drink ... much at all." As they went out onto the street, Florence carried on, leaning more and more on Jenny as they continued. "Maybe the occasional nice glass of wine with a meal, I suppose, but not spirits. Do you want to go out for a meal, Jenny? I know some places where they have very nice glasses of wine ..."

"Come on, pet, let's get you home." Before Florence was really even aware of it, Jenny had left her half-slumped against a lamp-post and was already halfway out into the street, putting her hand up for a taxi.

"It's fine; we can take the tube," Florence said weakly.

But a taxi had already pulled up and Jenny was bundling her into it. Much later, when her head was clearer, Florence would wonder whether it was a real taxi or an MI5 plant, before dismissing the thought: surely the operation around her wasn't _that_ slick.

Jenny gave the driver Florence's address and the taxi moved off with a jerk that nearly had her sliding off the seat. Jenny pulled her back and wrestled the seatbelt over her.

"Do you know what I was thinking, during all that?" Florence said after a particularly bumpy cornering manoeuvre.

"I really don't," Jenny said.

"I was thinking: I miss Freddie," Florence said.

"Not Anatoly?" Jenny said carefully.

"That's different," Florence said. She laughed, almost a chortle. "Freddie would have had ... a thing or two to say about all that."

"Aye," Jenny said. "But directed at them, or directed at you?"

"Both, probably."

They arrived back home and Jenny made her a strong cup of coffee.

"Do you think I should call him?" Florence asked. "What time is it in America anyway?" She was usually good at time zones, it was one of the many things she'd had to keep straight for Freddie over the years ...

"He's not in America," Jenny said. "He's in Japan at the moment. And it's three in the morning there."

"He's ... in Japan? How do you know that and I don't?"

"Knowing things is--"

"Kind of your job," Florence finished for her. "So do you know his number there? Or where he's staying or--"

"I can find out." She looked at Florence seriously. "If you want me to."

Florence paused for a long while. Maybe it was the whisky but she felt as though she was teetering on a precipice, but in a strange sort of way, where falling might not be _bad_ , just different.

"Yes," she said eventually. "Yes, I think I would."

"It's all right, Florence," Jenny said, and in her hazy state Florence didn't immediately register the use of her forename. "You'll feel right as rain in the morning."

* * *

_Her queen safe again, Florence concentrated on stabilising his position. Freddie, too, was licking his wounds, moving pieces back into more tight-knit defensive formations._

_After half a dozen moves or so, it was almost as though the turbulent portion of the match had never happened in the first place._

_Almost._

* * *

The hinges on the letterbox creaked; this was followed by a scraping sound as something was pushed through and a dull thud as it landed on the doormat.

Later, Florence thought that the post arriving in the usual way -- rather than delivered by Jenny or one of her colleagues after it had been thoroughly checked (whether for dangerous material or covert communications, Florence had never managed to ascertain) -- should have been her first clue that something had changed, but she didn't recognise the significance at the time. She simply padded down the hallway in her dressing gown and went to pick it up. There were a couple of bills, something in an unmarked envelope, and two magazines: the latest BCM, and _Punch_. She picked them up and headed to the sofa in the living room.

She settling down to read the magazines, tucking her feet under herself and nudging her hair, still wet from the shower, away from her ear. She was surprised to see a game of Freddie's in BCM -- surely she would have heard if he had returned to competitive play? -- before she realised someone was re-analysing one of the Iceland matches.

She hadn't phoned him, in the end. She had a small scrap of paper on which Jenny had indeed written down a long string of digits that would, if everything worked perfectly, have connected her to where he had been staying in Japan, but he wasn't there any more. She knew his number in America well enough, but the desire to call him had not arisen again, or at least not so strongly.

She put the chess magazine aside and picked up the satirical one. For her, reading _Punch_ was probably the thing that brought her closest to the memories of her later childhood -- her adoptive parents had always had the latest copy, and she'd been reading it surreptitiously long before they'd decided she was old enough for it. She remembered that Anatoly had been simultaneously scandalised and delighted that such material was allowed to be published.

It really should have occurred to her that _Punch_ was exactly the sort of magazine that advertisements for high-class Scotch would be placed in.

It had been months since the photoshoot, and she'd tried to put it out of her mind as much as possible, but now here were the results of it, her own face gazing up at her from the glossy page she had just turned.

They had gone with the resignation shot. She supposed it probably was the most dramatic, even though it made no sense at all with the strapline they'd chosen: _What's your next move?_

Florence closed the magazine, not deigning to read the small densely printed paragraphs at the bottom that she knew would be arguing that for any person of taste and refinement, the next obvious move would be to buy the whisky. She got up from the sofa, put it down on the sideboard, and began pacing agitatedly.

Her eye was caught by the bills -- at least the money from it had paid those, she supposed. She really needed to find a more reliable source of income, though. Her mind drifted back to BCM -- if there was still appetite for people raking over the coals of Freddie's career, then surely they'd be interested in her insights? And then she could probably parlay that into a regular column; she was pretty confident she could write more vividly than most of their correspondents.

But in her heart she already knew that was a non-starter; there would be too much of a feeling of betrayal, though by and of whom she wasn't entirely sure she knew.

Get a grip on yourself, Florence, she told herself. She decided to open the other envelope, the nondescript one she'd thought nothing of at first.

It was an invitation, to the IBM championship in Amsterdam. At first she thought it was an invitation to attend as a guest, but then she read it again: it was definitely an invitation to compete. And not in the parallel B tournament, either, the main A one.

Shocked, she sat back down to catch her breath. It wasn't _completely_ absurd for them to invite her, but neither was it really the done thing when she had no recent ranking to speak of. Which meant that someone, somewhere, really wanted her to go. But who, and why?

Before she had much time to think further, though, there was a sharp knock at the door followed by Jenny's customary "I'm coming in!" They had gone back and forth over what the point of knocking was, given that she would indeed come in anyway, even if Florence told her not to -- to check that she wasn't doing so under duress, supposedly -- and Jenny had always replied with "It's polite, isn't it?"

"Good morning," Jenny said cheerfully. "And how are we today?"

"A little confused, if you must know," Florence said. "I've just received this." She held out the invitation.

Jenny looked at it without taking it. "Amsterdam, eh? Nice." Florence assumed she meant the city, not the competition.

"I think I want to go. I know it'll be a lot more work for you and--"

"Actually, that's very much not my problem," Jenny said cheerfully. "I came here to tell you that I'm being reassigned."

"Then I'll get someone new?" Florence felt a stab of guilt. "I'm sorry for the way I've treated you sometimes; you've been ..." _the closest thing I've had to a friend, these last few months._ "You've been very kind. And I know there have been times when I've displaced my frustrations about the situation I'm in onto you when none of it--"

"No, no one new," Jenny said, cutting her off.

"Oh."

"No new operative, but there is new _intelligence_ ; we have strong reasons to believe that any interest the KGB had in you is now over."

Dread filled Florence's heart. "Is Anatoly all right?"

Jenny's professional composure broke for just a moment as she gasped at realising how her words had come across. "He's all right," she said. "Or as all right as you are, any road." She paused for a moment, in the way she often did when working out how to thread the needle between what she knew and what she was allowed to tell. "I think it's more by nature of the workings out of some kind of deal."

"Ah." _Walter,_ Florence thought immediately.

"Ah indeed," Jenny said. " _Well_ above my pay grade, by any measure." It was as much of an answer as she'd have been able to give if Florence hadn't known better than to ask her for any details.

"So, this is goodbye?"

"I would imagine so," Jenny said. "At least, I hope so for your sake. If you see me again it will mean things have gone south rather quickly." On the last few words, she switched her accent, the way she had done so often when undercover, making Florence laugh involuntarily.

"Well, thank you," Florence said. It felt inadequate and ridiculous at the same time -- the notion that she had needed protection from ... what, exactly? Kidnapping by a squad of deep-cover sleeper agents? A momentary encounter with a poison-tipped umbrella? ... already seemed like something that belonged to the life of someone completely different.

"Just doin' my job, ma'am," Jenny said, putting on a mock-American drawl and giving a sloppy salute with a couple of fingers.

Florence laughed and Jenny smiled back at her.

Jenny was almost at the door when she turned round and said, "Florence?"

"Yes?" Florence said, startled -- she'd still only ever called her something other than "Miss Vassy" once, that time after the photoshoot.

"This might seem like a bit of an odd question, but were you hoping I was going to say you couldn't go? To Amsterdam, I mean?"

"I ... I don't know," Florence said. "Why, would you have done?" She narrowed her eyes. "Do you think I shouldn't go?"

Jenny pulled back the door. "I don't think you should go ... if you're just going for the sake of it. I think you should go if you're going to _win_."

* * *

_They played on. Florence's position grew stronger, but so did Freddie's. Their denuded forces began to meet again in the centre of the board, but they both avoided situations that would end in captures -- it was as though they were circling each other, waiting for the right moment._

* * *

Florence sat at the table, sipping her water slowly and carefully.

The waiter had already been back twice to ask her if she wanted to order, the implication that she'd been stood up left unspoken, but crystal clear. She'd demurred each time, even though the feeling of being abandoned in a restaurant by Freddie was all too familiar. She felt inside her handbag for the little slip of paper with his temporary number in Japan on it; it had been in there for a long time, despite it having long since been useless.

In the end, it had been Freddie who had called her first, after Amsterdam. Stiffly offered congratulations had given way to an interrogation about how she had done it, to the point where she'd had to ask if she was being interviewed on the record. But by the time they'd hung up, hours later, it had been just like old times. Or at least, the good parts of the old times. In the end, for better or worse, she knew Freddie better than anyone, and Freddie knew her better than anyone too.

There had been a few more phone calls after that. In the most recent one, he'd mentioned that he'd be in London on business the next month. Florence had said they should meet up, and now here they were. Or rather, here she was, and he wasn't.

Not here _yet_ , she told herself.

He would come, she was sure of it -- or almost sure. He might be appallingly late, but he would come. She needed to talk to him about what had happened in Amsterdam; not the tournament itself, but certain conversations she'd had there.

Her reverie was broken when the _maitre d'_ came over to her table. "Madam, there is a gentleman here who _claims_ that he is your guest."

She looked up and saw Freddie. Saw, too, where the very deliberate choice of the word "claims" had come from: Freddie's hands were still in his pockets, his shirt loose around his neck, the collar worn and grubby. All the other men here were wearing a tie, but Florence couldn't recall Freddie ever owning, let alone wearing, one.

"Yes, he's with me," Florence said.

"Very well," the _maitre d'_ said, obviously disappointed at not having an excuse to turn Freddie away.

Once he'd brought Freddie over, he pulled out the chair but Freddie didn't sit down immediately. Instead, he looked at Florence and said, "So."

Florence could feel the old familiar patterns re-surfacing without her bidding; the desire to get up and hug him at war with the desire to lay into him: "So? That's all you have to say, after all this time? So?" was almost unbearably strong, and the instinct only a hair-trigger away.

But they had played all those different variations out long ago, and she was determined to try something different. She took a deep breath and said, without meeting his eyes, "So."

"Is that all you've--" Freddie broke off, realising that it was all _he_ had had to say for himself, too. "Oh, I see what you're doing," he said as he sat down. "Reverse psychology."

"If that's what you want to call giving you a taste of your own medicine," Florence said, with a primness that almost bordered on arch.

"Touché," Freddie said. He picked up the menu; after a moment, she saw his eyes boggle slightly. "If you've invited me here so that I can buy you an expensive meal, you should know that the Global money only--"

"I'm paying," Florence said quickly, keen to cut off any accusations of mercenary intent.

"Well, in _that_ case I'll have the lobster thermidor and a magnum of their best champagne."

Quick as a flash, and smooth as silk, the waiter re-appeared at their table, pad at the ready. "Are you ready to order, sir?"

"He was kidding," Florence said.

"Was I?" Freddie said, with the insufferable air he always had when he thought he'd called someone's bluff.

"You don't like seafood," Florence pointed out. "Never have." Freddie deflated at that and went back to studying the menu properly.

"Shall I come back?" the waiter asked.

"I think that might be for the best," Florence said, hoping that he was looking only at her and so didn't see the way Freddie was waving him away as though he was some irritating insect. "It might take us a little while to decide."

Once the waiter had gone, Freddie put his menu down. "Even if I order the cheapest thing on the menu, it's still going to set you back ..."--she could almost see the wheels turning in his mind as he calculated the exchange rate--"a lot. What, have you been eating noodles for the past three months to be able to afford to take me out?"

"No," Florence said, "this is all going on expenses. It's just not a bottomless account."

"Doesn't it have to be a business meeting to go on expenses?"

"Who says it isn't?" Florence smiled, before picking up her own menu to hide her face, as though she hadn't made her mind up long before he arrived.

But before she'd had time to do more than reacquaint herself with the wine list, Freddie was pushing the menu back down. "Then you _are_ going for it. I'd heard the rumours, but I assumed--"

"Assumed what, Freddie?" Florence said, tone sweet but with just enough steel in it to warn him off saying anything about the fact that no female player had ever made it to a world championship before.

"Well ..."

"Yes?" She cocked her head. "Don't tell me you're another one of those people who's bought into the line that Viigand's literally unbeatable?"

"If you'd listened to any of my commentary you'd know that I don't think that. But at the same time, you can't deny that his track record these last few years is impressive," Freddie said. "Since Sergievsky, he's not lost a single _game_ in a competition, not even in that exhibition match against the computer."

"Well, he's tightened up his King's Indian Defence, that's for sure," Florence said.

Freddie caught her eye then, and she could sense the way he was re-evaluating things. If Anatoly had told her about that conversation Freddie had had with him ...

Freddie's silence was long enough that it was interrupted by the waiter reappearing. "And have you decided now?" he asked, his tone just a half a notch down the obsequious scale than before, but enough to indicate his displeasure.

Freddie was oblivious, of course. "What's good?" he asked, beaming up at the waiter.

"All of it, sir," came the reply, and now the "sir" positively dripped with menace. Florence hid her smile by wiping her mouth with her napkin.

"Then I'll have the ravioli," Freddie said, snapping his menu shut.

Florence ordered her own meal -- she had been intending to have a starter, but now that Freddie wasn't going to, she didn't want to have the asymmetrical situation of him being free to talk while she ate -- and a bottle of not-too-expensive wine for them to share. The waiter nodded at her curtly and retreated.

"You know you'll be the centre of attention," Freddie said, as though they hadn't been interrupted, as though he hadn't paused for an absurdly long time even before that.

"I think I have _some_ idea what that's like."

"You really don't," Freddie said. At Florence's raised eyebrow, he went on, "Not when _you're_ the one competing. And with all the ..."

"Yes?"

"Look, Florence, _I_ know that you're as good as any man out there. That's why I asked you to be my second, all those years ago. And the people who are really paying attention, they know too. But the press, the public ... You'll be in the eye of a hurricane."

"Almost as much as you were, in Merano? The brash young American taking on the Soviets off the board as well as on, just as the Cold War looked as though it was really hotting up?"

"Even more so, I think," Freddie said, and she could hear in his tone, see in the animation in his face, that he was engaging with the idea the way she had hoped he would: as a position to be explored seriously, not a puzzle to be solved in whatever way gave him the chance to make the most cutting remark. "Capitalism vs communism is a modern novelty compared to the age-old battle of the sexes. I mean, look what happened in the '70s with those tennis players ... what were their names?" He waved his hand. "Doesn't matter, the point is, right now it's just rumours in the chess world. But you win another tournament or two on your to being the challenger and they'll be all over you ... Are you really sure you can cope with that?"

The waiter arrived back with their wine, looked uneasily between them as he tried to decide which of them he should offer it to taste it. Florence had to stifle a laugh, at such a tiny microcosm of what Freddie was talking about playing out right in front of her. She had chosen the wine, she was going to be paying for it, and it was entirely obvious that he had no confidence at all in Freddie possessing any sort of taste or discernment about anything. And yet, he still thought that perhaps Freddie should be the one to be offered it first, just because he was a man.

Somewhat to her surprise, Freddie looked the waiter straight in the eye. "Give it to her; I know nothing about this sort of thing."

"Very good," the waiter said. He turned to her and poured a small amount into her glass.

She took a sip, only remembering just in time to smell it first, then put the glass down again. "Lovely, thank you," she said.

The waiter poured some more into her glass, then gave some to Freddie. "I'll be along with your meals presently," he said before he left.

Freddie took a sip. "Huh, this _is_ good wine."

"I thought you said you knew nothing about it," Florence said.

Freddie picked up the bottle, made a show of studying the label. "Well, now I know that this stuff is good. I'll have to remember that ... you know, in case some maiden aunt I've never heard of dies and I inherit everything." He put the bottle down again. "Who did you say was paying for all this, anyway?"

"I didn't. But let's just say that I met some people in Amsterdam who seem to be keen to see a 'battle of the sexes', if you insist on calling it that," Florence said. "I'm not entirely sure that all of them want me to _win_ , mind you ..."

"And so what's the justification you've given them for all this wining and dining?" Freddie said. "Trying to get the measure of how the commentariat might react? Trying to persuade me to give you an easy ride on Global? You should know, I'm not--"

"I want you to help me," Florence said.

"Help you?"

"The way you were talking about it just then," she said. "You're already considering all the angles. Who else should I trust to help me get there, let alone win? You know that I think you're one of the best chess players out there."

"Such high praise," he said. He furrowed his brow in the way that he only did when he was actually giving something some serious thought. "I mean, I'm sure there's some arrangement we could work out; I'd have to find out whether Global thought it was a conflict of interest--"

"Freddie," Florence said, putting her hand on his. "I'm not talking about some sort of minor consultancy work." She looked away for a moment to gather her strength for what she was about to say, then turned back to him, gazing at him intently. "I'm asking you to be my second."

Freddie snorted. "Me? Be _your_ second?"

"Is it really so absurd?"

Freddie was saved from having to answer that immediately by the meal arriving.

They ate in silence, apart from the occasional exclamation from Freddie about how the food really was _almost_ worth what they were paying for it.

"There is one other thing you need to think about," Freddie said, once they'd both finished.

"There is?"

"What if they decided to make it a full reunion?" She must have looked as confused as she felt, so he went on, "All of us at a championship again, just with the seating arrangements shuffled around?" She was still none the wiser. "Florence, what if the Soviets make Sergievsky act as Viigand's second?"

That threw her, just for a moment; and the fact that it did meant that it was something that had to be seriously considered. " _Anatoly_ has long since retired," she said once she'd regained her composure. "And he wouldn't," she added quickly. "I'm sure of it."

"They might not give him much choice," Freddie said.

"They'd be too worried that he might defect again. _Especially_ if they twisted his arm too much."

"You might have a point there," Freddie admitted. "He defects, he defects back again ... it's not very satisfying, is it? Three times is neater."

Florence rolled her eyes. "That's hardly what I'm talking about."

The waiter reappeared to take their plates. "And would you like dessert?" he asked her, this time without any hesitation.

"Just some coffees, please," Florence said. "One black, one cappuccino."

"Very good," the waiter said, somehow making the tiniest of bows that he gave her supercilious.

"Dessert would give you more time to try to talk me into it," Freddie said.

"You've never liked things that were too sweet," Florence said. "And besides, you've already given me your answer."

"I have?"

"When you talked about 'a full Bangkok reunion'," Florence said.

"Ah, now, that was a hypothetical," Freddie protested.

"Don't give me that. We both know you've already decided."

* * *

_They played on a while longer, re-engaging with one another, until only a few pieces were left. They were in the endgame now: all the complexity of the midgame shorn away, leaving only the familiar set of moves that they had played so many times before._

_Florence knew Freddie too well to fall for any of his tricks, and he knew her too well to expect her to do so._

_He looked up. "Draw?"_

_"Draw," she said._

_He was surprised when she started resetting the board. "Florence, it's late and tomorrow's--"_

_"My first game against Viigand?" she said. "That's exactly why I want to play again."_

_Freddie sat back down. "Well, then, as your dutiful second I'll be glad to oblige."_


End file.
